November 9 1974
“No Food” say Maze Men over Conditions
The thousands of mourners who attended the funeral near Coalisland yesterday of Long Kesh escapee, Hugh Gerard Coney, heard that other Republican prisoners in the Maze had started a hunger strike in protest against the conditions under which they had to live.
This was revealed at the graveside, by Co Tyrone Sinn Féin chairman, Mr Aidan Corrigan, when he read a letter which he said had been smuggled out of the jail, yesterday morning, by a Co Tyrone prisoner.
“He asked me”, said Mr Corrigan, “to tell you of the insufferable, inhuman conditions and indignation which the men in Long Kesh have to suffer. He said that one group had already gone on hunger strike and the others would follow suit”.
Day of Protest in Belfast at Coney Shooting
In a day of protests against the shooting of Hugh Coney ay Long Kesh earlier this week, about 1,500 people marched in silence from the Whiterock Road at Dunville Park yesterday morning. In the afternoon a slightly smaller number attended a rally at the City Hall, where traffic was blocked for a short time.
The protests, which passed off peacefully, were organised by the Belfast United Workers’ Group, who had called for a complete shutdown of industry in West Belfast yesterday. Representatives from the Republican Clubs and Kevin Street Sinn Fein were also present.
Mr Eddie Keenan, speaking for the BUWG, said that the strike and protests had been called to show the sympathy of all workers with the relatives of Hugh Coney and to express their solidarity with all internees in Long Kesh. He pointed out that when, in the Second World War, 40 British POWs were shot escaping from a German concentration camp, those responsible were executed after the War.
“The same thing”, he said, “had happened in Ireland today but there will be no executions”.
Two ex-internees also spoke at both meetings and Mr Alex Lowry, President of the New University of Ulster Students’ Union, expressed the solidarity of both the NUS and USI [Union of Students in Ireland] with BUWG in calling for an end to internment.
The Central Committee of the People’s Democracy said they called on all anti-imperialist organisations to support the PD march tomorrow, leaving Beechmount, Falls Road at 2pm.
Republicans in Long Kesh went on hunger strike and protests were held following the death of Hugh Gerard Coney, who, as an inquest ruled in 2024, was shot in the back without warning as he was trying to escape from Long Kesh.
